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Other voices: Many Benghazi questions remain

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U.S. presidential politics instantly intervened, with Republican Mitt Romney declaring, “The
Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic mission, but to
sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

Eight months later, fresh evidence suggests that with the election imminent, the administration,
too, had a political agenda: to avoid acknowledging a successful terrorist assault on an
underprotected U.S. outpost on the anniversary of 9/11. As ABC News documented Friday, the final
version of Central Intelligence Agency talking points no longer included any mention of al-Qaida
allies as participants.

Vigorous email lobbying by State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also had scrubbed
wording that, she wrote, “could be abused by members (of Congress) to beat up the State Department
for not paying attention to warnings” of al-Qaida threats in Benghazi.

The administration instead settled into the narrative that an Internet video insulting to
Muslims had provoked the attack.

Thus commenced the Washington free-for-all.

The political became the heart-wrenching with last week’s measured accounts from three State
Department officers testifying under oath before a House committee. The inescapable conclusion —
unchallenged by the administration — is that as the eight-hour Benghazi horror unfolded, one or
more U.S. officials decided not to scramble F-16 fighter jets for an intimidating overflight, or to
dispatch an already mobilized Special Forces team from the capital of Tripoli.

We’re left with consequences of Benghazi decisions that, as we’ve argued in five editorials,
need to be explained to Americans.

A Senate committee in December reached a verdict alarming to citizens of all persuasions: “
Despite the inability of the Libyan government to fulfill its duties to secure the facility, the
increasingly dangerous threat assessments, and a particularly vulnerable facility, the Department
of State officials did not conclude the facility in Benghazi should be closed or temporarily shut
down. That was a grievous mistake.”

Similarly unexplained: the decision not to make even desperate military attempts at a rescue,
and the decision to mute early intelligence about al-Qaida allies who had killed a U.S.
ambassador.

Uncovering the truth should be a bipartisan mission: A decade go, the 9/11 Commission showed how
an investigation devoted not to blame but to preventing future debacles can help Americans fix
systemic flaws and move forward.